


The Woman in the Fridge

by ArtemiStorm



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Girl Power, Growing Up, My First Work in This Fandom, POV Outsider, POV of a regular citizen, Women in the Military, finding the way, rising out of the ashes, watching from afar
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:07:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23215255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtemiStorm/pseuds/ArtemiStorm
Summary: ***Extremely slow to update***Maria Garcia grew up in a hellhole but somehow, she survived. Now as a young adult, far behind her peers, she struggles to make her way in the world. Her only inspiration and guide are the Avengers, especially Black Widow, and her own timid lionheart. Through the years, as the Widow rises, Maria, on her own path, rises too. But when the Widow falls, what happens to Maria?
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	The Woman in the Fridge

**Author's Note:**

> I HATE the woman-in-the-fridge trope. I hate what MCU did to Black Widow. But now it is MCU canon and written in stone. I’m just trying to write a story that gives it meaning to us regular lay-people, a story that sort of redeems her death, and that gives me hope that maybe, this isn’t actually The End for the Widow.
> 
> FYI, Black Widow and the Avengers don’t show up until chapter 2.
> 
> Spoilers for Endgame are in Chapter 4. But then again, by now, everyone should have already seen it.
> 
> I don’t own Black Widow or the Avengers. They belong to MCU. But Maria Garcia is mine.

Maria kicked the pile of leaves on the side of the road. Brown decomposing oak leaves flew in clumps a few feet in front of her and splatted onto the gravel road. She tried to kick one of the clumps of leaves, but her toe caught on the raised edge of a pothole. She tripped and fell into the muddy hole.

Stupid Maria.

She was a failure. 

It had been a year since she had graduated. What had she successfully done with her life? A whole year she could have been working and making money or going to university or traveling the world doing some kind of humanitarian mission. 

But no. She was too scared. She was too tired. After her stupid awful exhausting traumatic childhood, she wasn’t ready to adult. All her peers had long since leapt forward into their adult lives, excited and vibrant and full of hopes and dreams, and there she was just trying to stand up after having been kicked around by others all her life. She looked far down the street and imagined that she saw her former classmates, running, jumping, laughing and shouting to each other, leaving her behind. She pushed herself up to her feet, covered in murky water, and trudged forward again toward the house where she lived.

She felt guilty staying there. Her grandparents provided for most of her needs, even though she was eighteen and legally an adult. She ought to be taking care of herself. She didn’t make enough as a part-time nanny for some sympathetic family friends to pay rent. She had tried, half-heartedly to apply for jobs in her hometown, but she had never heard back from anyone. Not really surprising since in a university town. She had no money for community college but it hadn’t really felt like the direction she wanted to go anyways. So what was she doing? Nannying part time, reading, watching TV, journaling, building model airplanes… nothing that counted for anything.

Throughout her childhood of dysfunction, abuse, neglect, fear, and pain, she had long dreamed and waited for someone to notice her suffering; for someone to investigate, then swoop in and save her. She longed for someone to prove that she was indeed loveable, that she was loved (not just stupid mushy words, but actually prove it with actions), to tell her that they cared for her…

But no one ever came. 

The abuse didn’t stop. The neglect left her confused. The pain became worse in her teenage years as she struggled to make sense of who she was and wasn’t. 

Then came the despair. One dark night, she put to words what she had been feeling for a long time but hadn’t yet been able to describe. 

No one loved her. No one even liked her. Everyone seemed to have abandoned her. No one was going to come and save her. Her childhood was never going to get better. It may even keep getting worse before the end. 

Maria lost hope that her childhood could be turned around. But she also knew that childhood doesn’t last forever. 

It would end. Her trash life as it was would all change when she graduated, turned 18 and could live on her own. Someday, she could make her own way. Her life would be governed by her own choices, not the choices of others. Screw her childhood. Screw her hometown and community. Screw her family. Someday she was gonna become a grownup and could make her own way in the world. All she had to do was endure and survive until she graduated.

Maria made a new rule: there is always hope. Right now, her hope was in the promise of adulthood. Suddenly, in the midnight hour of that dark night, she realized, “since no one is coming to save me, it is up to me to save myself.”

“I am the one I’ve been waiting for.”

“I am my own hero.”

Her newfound hope gave her enough strength to survive each moment, but it didn’t take away the pain. It still ached. It burned. It felt like a knife in her heart. No one loved her. No hero or rescuer or parent-figure was coming to save her. She yearned for it with all her heart, but knew it was never coming. “Maybe someday,” she told herself, “someone will love me.”

Maria had indeed survived childhood, graduated, and moved away to the home of her kindly non-judgmental grandparents. She hadn’t really saved herself dramatically like a hero, she had merely endured the pain and came out alive. Now here she was, standing on the street corner covered in mud of the street she had just walked. In front of her, down one street lay her grandparents’ house and her life of dysfunction that she perpetuated. Down the other was her imagined classmates lightyears ahead of her, taking a paths she knew she could not tread. She may have survived, but she definitely didn’t feel like a hero.

But, the intersection she stood at was a four-way stop. There was another street. She looked up that street northward at the mountains that shadowed the northern edge of the city. Mountains. The represented something metaphorical, probably. Maybe her dreams and ambitions. Maybe her destiny, if that was a thing. Or maybe, it was a wall boxing her in and dooming her to never rise from the ashes of a broken life. Who knows? 

Clouds descended and hid the mountains. It began to rain, drizzling at first, then a heavy cold rain like what was brought by winter storms from the sea. Maybe it was a sign not to take the northerly road. Maybe it was a sign that she never would. Not that she was ready right now anyways. She was muddy, cold, wet, and tired. For now, the only road she could take was back to grandparents. She sighed and bent her head over to keep the rain out of her eyes and walked toward the house she lived in.

**Author's Note:**

> I write this in quarantine for possible exposure to coronavirus. I suddenly have lots of time. :D


End file.
